Go Picard! Hard Arse! He's awesome. I love how religion in the 24th century has become a hobby, and not a driving force for fanaticism and violence.Even amongst the Bajorans, perhaps the most spiritual of the alien races, religion seemed to take a second place behind the fight for independence.

Then, saturated with joy, you will put an end to suffering and stress.SN 9.11

I've always loved the expression "taking Capt Picard to warp nine".What we need is Picard as the next Pope.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

David N. Snyder wrote:Nature produced a few smart and handsome men. The rest have hair.

I'm getting pretier day by day!

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

David N. Snyder wrote:Nature produced a few smart and handsome men. The rest have hair.

You are funny, David!

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

Not sure what your point is, this site is dedicated to the discussion of the Thervada. Your last few posts are concerned with Zen and its appropriation by the Japanese government during WWII. Please help me to understand why you keep posting this stuff.

To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.-Dhp. 183

LonesomeYogurt wrote:The difference is that disbelief in those things is punishable by a stern look from a senior monk instead of eternal damnation.

Even if that was true (it's not), my main point stands. Buddhism believes in a lot of superstitious things like . . .

How is what LY wrote not true?

Those superstitious things like resurrection of the body (flesh), transubstantiation, virgin birth, heaven, hell are essential in Christianity, but those things are not essential in Buddhism. The focus is on suffering and the way out of suffering, The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The other things (devas, hell realms, etc) will get you a stern look from a monk if you say you don't believe in the them at the most. Some monks won't even give you a stern look.

Jay1 wrote:The response was that no I am wrong because Buddhism could not ignite violence and no-one could murder in the name of Buddhism but they could in the name of the Christian god. Hence my posts on Japane's Buddhism and its relationship to ww2.

There are good Christians and there are bad Christians.There are good Buddhists and there are bad Buddhists.